10/07/2014

I have a smartphone, you have a smartphone, almost everyone has a smartphone. In fact, more than 1.5 billion people have smartphones. And no wonder: smartphones are adept at simplifying access to, well, everything.

Take, for example, the day I got my BlackBerry Z10. I had never used the device before, but within 30 minutes, I was exchanging emails, sending text messages, adding contacts, booking appointments, visiting websites, downloading apps — all this from a Luddite who had used only one other smartphone in his entire lifetime.

Smartphones are a boon, but they are also a curse. No, not because they tempt people to interact with the online world instead of the “real” world around them. But rather, because of the expectations they create. More specifically, the expectations they create for anyone building a device that isn’t a smartphone.

That’s right, expectations. Nowadays, anyone building any device has to score a near 10 in the user interface department, because users, having been conditioned by their phones, won’t accept anything less.

These expectations can be a headache for medical device developers. Not only must they deliver a great UX, but increasingly, they must also develop their systems in time frames that are more typical of phones than of traditional medical devices.

But hold on, what about safe operation? And what about compliance with standards like IEC 62304? How do you keep up with smartphone Joneses and still address these requirements? To help answer that question, my esteemed colleague Chris Ault will present the following webinar this week: